Six years ago the federal government put the Hebelka Auto Salvage Yard in Weisenberg Township on its Superfund cleanup list.

Three weeks ago the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency removed the last of the thousands of battery casings that contaminated the property. In the months ahead 3,300 cubic yards of polluted soil also will be hauled away and replaced with "clean" soil.

But all of it -- more than $7.5 million in studies, legal battles and cleanup -- has been unnecessary, according to members of the Hebelka family, who believe the property is not the environmental and health threat the EPA says it is.

The EPA has roped off a large portion of the property, preventing storage of the large fuel tanks and automobiles the company recycles. The government placed a $500,000 lien on the 20-acre property along Old Route 22 and, within 30 years, wants 60 percent of the appraised value of the property to help cover cleanup costs.

If the family doesn't pay, the property could be sold at sheriff's sale and the proceeds given to the government.

"All this for something we inherited," Hebelka said.

Joseph Hebelka, who started the salvage business in the 1950s, died in 1980. The seven children inherited the property and business in 1988 when their mother died.

The family believes their case is an example of what is wrong with Superfund.

Last month the three brothers, Richard, James and Larry, and their uncle, Robert, traveled to Washington to meet with several groups seeking changes in Superfund. The program, which is coming up for reauthorization, is being criticized by environmental, business and insurance coalitions and politicians for its cost, slow pace of cleanups and questionable environmental and health benefits.

A congressional subcommittee is tentatively set to begin hearings on Superfund on May 5, and environmental groups are looking for people like the Hebelkas to support their arguments that the program doesn't work.

"It's no secret the amount of cleanup done compared to the amount of money spent is ridiculous," said Gretta Graham, spokeswoman for the National Environmental Trust Fund Project, which has met with the Hebelkas.

Of 1,200 Superfund sites, only 149 have been cleaned up. Cleanup averages 11 years and nearly $30 million per site, not including legal fees, according to the organization.

The group wants changes to Superfund's retroactive liability clause, which allows the government to hold any party connected to a site liable for the entire cost of cleanup no matter what, when or how much they contributed to the problem.

Legal battles to get businesses, local governments, hospitals and schools to share in cleanup costs have exhausted hundreds of millions of dollars that critics say could be better used to clean up sites.

"The way the law is structured, EPA must go out and find anyone connected to the site," Graham said. "We say that's inefficient and ineffective."

The EPA is cleaning up the Hebelka property because it has high lead levels in the soil, in some cases a thousand times higher than the level the agency considers safe. A recent study by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry called the salvage yard a public health threat.

The study found small amounts of lead in some residential wells in the Haafsville area, one-quarter mile east of the salvage yard, and in sediment in Iron Run Creek about 200 feet to the south.

"From EPA's standpoint it was a major contamination and had to be remediated with all speed," EPA spokesman Merv Harris said of the salvage yard. "With the charge we have been given from Congress, this was a serious contamination."

"Obviously the Hebelkas disagree with that. And that is their right," Harris said. "But we have to do what Congress wants."

The Hebelkas, however, say the EPA has mismanaged a cleanup that isn't necessary. For several years they refused to sign an agreement allowing the cleanup because of the agency's methods.

The family signed the agreement in July 1991 only after the government threatened to sue them individually.

With videotapes and photographs they've recorded the government's work on the property. A large cardboard box is their file for hundreds of pages of reports, studies and letters.

Lead found in one test well got there, the brothers allege, because the EPA's contractor failed to clean its equipment after sinking a well in a contaminated portion of the property.

"We don't think that happened," said Al Peterson, an EPA spokesman. "We're confident we followed the protocols we set up for decontaminating the drill bits after each procedure."

The first water sample drawn from the well contained lead, Peterson said. The second sample did not, he said.

A cracked cement collar around one well cap could have allowed lead to seep into the well, according to the brothers.